Yesterday’s Review of Antonia Quirke’s Book

Yesterday’s New York Times ran a mixed review of Antonia Quirke‘s CHOKING ON MARLON BRANDO, which I’ve been talking up here. It’s by no means a total pan, but the curious thing about the review, in my opinion, is that it praises stuff in the book that’s OK and doesn’t seem to appreciate what’s actually great about it. Which is, that Quirke is a gifted critic with genuine, original and highly perceptive things to say about actors and the phenomenon of stardom (as it reverberates through the world).

She also is a writer who is willing to put herself out there in a very personal way. At one point, she describes sex with a boyfriend as a long session in which she imagines going to bed with the Spanish actor Javier Bardem. That might be a first in serious criticism. And yet when we’re talking about movies, we are talking about fantasy — we’re talking about images that hit people where they live.

The thing with good criticism is kind of like the thing with good poetry: You read a poem from five hundred years ago and you get amazed to see perfectly described an emotion that you’ve felt, but never quite described or put your finger on. Really good criticism works that way with ideas. Antonia Quirke’s writing has that quality.